Bell From Hell, An Insaniac's Revenge

Weird, twisted and creepy! Just the way we like it. Add perverted and unsettling and we have a gem from Spain, 1973's "Bell From Hell" (aka "The Bells"). A standard revenge plot, perhaps, but this one is moved along with strange scene after strange scene. We realize that we are in for a unsettling experience when John (Renaud Verley) explains why he is leaving his job at the slaughterhouse, "I've learned everything I need to know." For what? Oh come on, you can guess.

John is released from the psychiatric hospital on a sort of probation (...this always works out well). Was he really insane, or did his Aunt Marta (Viveca Lindfors) merely want to steal his inheritance? The point is John feels the need for revenge and after getting practice at the slaughterhouse, he heads back to see Aunt Marta and his three lovely cousins, Esther (Maribel Martin), Teresa (Nuria Gemeno), and Maria (Christina von Blanc). He also amasses quite a collection of invasive surgical tools for future use. John has a plan, and his experience at the slaughterhouse and the surgical tools are integral parts of it. The three cousins are no pure flowers, as each of them, including underage Esther, desires taboo sex with him. I will skip the gang rape and the man at the urinal scene, but those scenes drive home this film's effort to make us feel uncomfortable.

The time to enact the plan has come and rape, humiliation, and bees will kick it off...a lot of bees, I should say. Uh oh for John...his Aunt Marta isn't as helpless as her advanced age and wheelchair may suggest. As the three nubile lasses are readied for a most violent and gruesome fate, Aunt Marta's plan is also put into action. Let me not forget to mention the bell. A new bell is being delivered to the town's church and this thing will figure prominent in the end of the film. In fact, director Claudio Guerin, while filming the last scene of this film, was killed when he fell off the church's bell tower...really, I'm not making this up. No spoilers here, but Mr. Guerin's demise was a lot less painful than what John has planned for his aunt and three cousins, or what Aunt Marta has planned for him.

Who will win, or will there be no survivors? Is John insane or are his plans for bloody revenge completely justified?  This one will have you squirming especially when you realize the slaughterhouse scenes will be replayed with the three nubile lasses. For weird Euro-horror, enjoy "Bell From Hell" from Spain.